clay + read: a public library checkout

I pretty much put at least one book on hold at the local library every week. Right now I’m listening to the latest fiction by one of my favorite authors, Cormac McCarthy on audiobook in my commute two or three days a week. The Passenger is excellent and eloquent and at times profanely funny—there are passages I want to commit to memory, and so I’ll probably check out the print copy too. But for my nonfiction fix, I needed something about ceramics and plants or my other hobbies. The Alan Moore title will be the fiction I pick up after I'm done with Boy in a China Shop.                    

The memoir so far by Keith Brymer Jones is okay. He’s much more compelling on the screen in Britain’s Great Pottery Throwdown when he’s so moved by a beautiful ceramic that he sheds tears. Even Patrick is entertained and will chuckle at Mr. Jones's crying. If I were in the U. K., I could never compete even though I’m an amateur ceramicist because I can’t throw for shit. No matter. I’ll stick to the hobby and the hand building and will get on the wheel during winter break. Last Tuesday at clay club for one, I applied underglaze to the porcelain spoon and dreidel ornaments that had just been bisque fired. Also fresh out of the kiln were the pots and drainage dish for Cecilia's nephew. I had a pint of a glaze called Wrought Iron, which I adhered just to the text and the top rim of the drainage dish. I might today go back and paint that Wrought Iron to the top rims of the pots.                      

I overglazed the other bisque pots with gloss white.

On one of the red or brown clay spoons, I adhered some of that Wrought Iron. They're my test pots for glaze.

I can't wait to see how my Obsidian clay body spoons turn out.

And today I remembered to bring an empty gallon milk jug this afternoon to pour more plaster to make another mold for plates and bowls.